A progressive outlook on politics in Australia and abroad

Dog meets bone

Team Howard is determined to try to make something of Peter Garrett’s apparent hinting that Labor will act differently once elected than it is saying it will. On Insiders this morning, the Captain supplemented this week’s comment from Garrett to Steve Price with a “new” bit of damning evidence – an interview of Bob Brown by Charles Wooley from one month ago. The Liberal Party now has the transcript on its web site. The part about Garrett says:

INTERVIEWER:
I know but I know what Peter is saying, he’s saying to blokes, to people of green persuasion or to others, or even to some journos, he’s saying ‘mate what we say now and what we do then could be two different things’, now you know he’s been putting that out.

Howard’s argument was:

The facts are that you now have two journalists, both of whom I say enjoy a good reputation, and neither could be described as a Liberal Party or a government stooge, neither of them. They’re both as straight as gun barrels when it comes to both sides of politics, and both of them have said that Peter Garrett, in the case of Charles Woolley, he has obviously heard around the traps, and he is connected, and he would know what he was talking about, and in the case of Steve Price, he has the experience of a direct conversation.

And you do not joke about things like this.

…

Now this is dynamite, because it reveals duplicity, it reveals a double standard, it demonstrates that the Labor Party has been saying one thing to try and calm everybody down. Peter Garrett is a radical, we all know that, the Labor Party has embraced him, he was brought into the Labor Party by John Faulkner and Mark Latham, remember in 2004, and he has spent more time at Kevin Rudd’s elbow in the last week than any other shadow minister, and he’ll be the Environment Minister in a Rudd Labor Government if he get elected.

Now there are a few issues here. The first, which Kevin Rudd has already made reference to, is that Howard’s unearthing of Wooley’s statement is giving a lot of weight to hearsay. Wooley’s claim is that Garrett had made statements to other people – he did not indicate that Garrett had said anything directly to him. Further, Wooley’s interview was with Brown – Peter Garrett was not given an opportunity to deny the claim (although I am sure he will be in the next day or two).

But, assuming that it is true, is it as significant or as disturbing as Team Howard makes it out to be? We have certainly become accustomed to the notion of core vs non-core promises, and of the small target strategy, in recent election cycles. I would like our politicians to commit as honestly and completely to their policy platform during the campaign. But Garrett’s alleged “gaffes” seem to be more like a bumbling and inexperienced politician attempting to play around with people a bit. It might not be clever, but it doesn’t seem sinister. And I suspect it won’t outrage many apart from the voters who were already going to support Team Howard anyway – the ones who are worried about the country being taken over by union thugs and radical greenies. To others, Garrett’s flippancy and nudge-nudge wink-wink approach to mendacity in politics could be endearing.

So, the Captain, Vice-Captain and anyone else on the team who actually manages to get air-time might as well go ahead and bang on about this for a few more days. By the time they’re done, it will be barely more than a fortnight out from the election and they still won’t have sold anyone on their vision for the future.